"Writing is a skill, not a talent, and thus one's ability as a writer can be improved by thoughtful effort. The problem with some people is that they graduate college as good writers, experience early success on account of that, and thus never devote themselves diligently to the relentless quest for improvement that could make them great writers."

Sunday, May 10, 2009

"We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold . . ."-- Hunter S. Thompson,Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

The photo above was one of several that arrived yesterday in a brown manilla envelope with no return address, accompanied by a cryptic note assembled by some maniac who had cut letters out of magazines and pasted them together to create a message so disgustingly obscene that even I would not reprint it here.

No matter what this anonymous extortionist claims, I refuse to believe that my dear friend Smitty could have engaged in the repulsive acts portrayed by these photographs. As far as I'm aware, for example, there are no teenage Ukrainian albino prostitutes employed in Nevada. Even if there are, I sincerely doubt there could be two of them -- identical twins at that and, to judge from the astonishing variety of poses, double-jointed bisexual acrobats who've spent years studying the Kama Sutra.

However, if these lurid scenes are genuine, Smitty is either racing toward the Mexican border or headed for a long spell in a federal penitentiary. He has no alibi, because everyone knows he spent the past week in Las Vegas, a place notorious for its decadent hedonism. Certainly I cannot be held accountable because, so far as I knew, he was merely going on holiday with his German in-laws. Granted, one occasionally hears bizarre rumors about elderly German tourists, but . . .

Forgeries or felonies, the photos were certainly interesting, although fearing an inquiry by the Postmaster General's office -- some kind of sting operation? -- I immediately destroyed all of them except the one relatively safe picture I scanned in and displayed at the top of this post. That is obviously Smitty at the right side of the photo. I'd recognize the bowtie anywhere, but . . . who is that woman on the left?

Little Miss Attila? Well, certainly some of the tales Matthew Vadum told of their CPAC escapades two years ago might lead me to believe she could do such things. And she does live in L.A., a reasonable driving distance from Vegas, assuming you have a radar detector and you're driving one of those big Chevy convertibles with a powerful V-8 engine.

For a few minutes, I stared at the photo while smoking a bowl of Kashmir's finest and decided no, it couldn't be Attila. Too tall. Which also rules out Cynthia Yockey who was, after all, still in Baltimore so far as anyone knew.

Who could she be? And then it hit me.

One of the photos I'd burned immediately after receiving the package had depicted Smitty participating in altogether despicable behavior with a certain breed of domesticated livestock.

Hit the tip jar, you ungrateful bastards!

Understand Liberalism

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